


The Invincible Body

by Masu_Trout



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games)
Genre: Aftermath & Recovery, Anal Sex, Bad Guys Made Them Do It, Broken Bones, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Jensen and Pritchard's Elaborate Mutual Dance of "Hurt Me Instead of Him", Loyalty, M/M, Mutual Pining, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Protectiveness, Resolved Sexual Tension, Rimming, Shame, Shock Collars, Spit As Lube, forced to fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:06:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26962618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masu_Trout/pseuds/Masu_Trout
Summary: Jensen wasn't the worst possible choice in the room. Not by a long shot. But he was too honorable for his own good, and stupid for thinking their captors would let them go under any circumstances. They were dead men walking. Pritchard, for one, didn't intend to go out getting pity-fucked by his ex-coworker.A routine mission becomes anything but when Pritchard's captured by an old, old enemy—one who still hasn't forgiven Pritchard for what happened last time they met. Jensen's determined to rescue him, but trying to save Pritchard might mean sacrificing them both.
Relationships: Adam Jensen/Francis Pritchard
Comments: 7
Kudos: 69





	The Invincible Body

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linndechir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/gifts).



> This ended up being even later than I hoped it would be, ahaha. I hope it finds you well regardless! 
> 
> Also, thanks very much to thinkatory for the beta.

Pritchard sat on a water-stained concrete bench, cradling a broken arm, trying and failing to ignore both the strip of metal wrapped around his throat and the gun pointed lazily at his temple, and seethed.

Eleven years ago, he’d been on the other end of that barrel. He’d decided not to shoot. Somehow, he didn’t think Becker was going to be half as merciful.

Becker was leaning against the wall on the opposite corner of the room, watching Pritchard with a smile that was just a little bit too wide for comfort. He was aiming for in control, Pritchard thought, a king surveying his domain, but the tension in his eyes and the way his finger kept twitching on the trigger showed what was underneath. He looked halfway to a mental breakdown—and if he decided to snap now, none of the Tarvos mercs here with Becker were going to lift a finger to stop him. They didn’t know how much Pritchard was worth alive; they didn’t know him from… well, from _Adam_. Sometimes anonymity had its downsides.

Fucking wonderful. Some things never changed, and wasn’t he lucky that Becker being a crazy asshole was one of them.

Pritchard kept still: head forward, hands in his lap, only glancing over towards Becker out of the corner of his eye. He knew it wouldn’t be enough to avoid provoking Becker, and he wasn’t surprised when Becker said, "So, Snake. How’s the mission going for you so far?"

 _Snake_. Like they were friends.

It would be stupid to respond. He knew full well that Becker wanted rile him up. But Pritchard still curled his lip and said, "Too early to say. How are your buddies back in prison doing?" and then gritted his teeth to keep from crying out as a jolt of electric current stabbed through him.

 _Fuck you_ , he thought viciously, digging his fingers into his palm to stop himself from rubbing at his neck. The collar Becker had forced on him was a low-grade EMP, designed to interfere with high-level augs rather than as a weapon in its own right, but Becker had found a few ways to tinker with it.

Pritchard was so, _so_ glad they’d blown up Becker’s Berlin operations. He’d never wanted anyone to suffer as badly as he wanted Becker to suffer now—and considering he’d been sharing an apartment with Jensen for the past three months, that was saying something.

Becker was already fucked. Pritchard and Jensen had been trailing him for months now, interfering with his weapons trades and dismantling his smuggling ops, long before Pritchard had ever realized exactly who was behind it all. His allies were dropping him faster than he could make new ones. His supply chain had been decimated, his operations thinned—no matter what happened, he wasn’t coming back from this.

Which also meant he had every motivation for murder. Pritchard had picked a really awful night to get caught. He just hoped Jensen managed to pull his part of the plan off cleanly; it wouldn’t save Pritchard, but knowing Becker was going down with him would at least make Pritchard feel better.

As if on cue, the lights overhead flickered. Becker cursed, his gaze and his gun barrel both leaving Pritchard’s face; the mercs scattered through the room shifted uneasily or turned to stare at the ceiling, and—

The lights cut out. The room went pitch black. Pritchard smiled.

Thirty seconds until the generator kicked on. They’d gone over the plan again and again until every last step of it was drilled into both their heads. Pritchard could trace Jensen’s path through the room without a scrap of light: drop down through the abandoned elevator shaft, staying close to the walls to avoid as many of the mercs as possible. (Somewhere off to his right, barely audible over Becker’s frantic, rapid-fire orders, Pritchard heard a slick wet noise and then a choked-off wheeze—an augmented blade sliding home into someone’s chest. A good sound.) Make it to the corner of the room, where the main database was being guarded, and plug Pritchard’s microcard into it while the power was still dead. Make it to the elevator shaft again, get back up the way only someone with an augmented vertical leap could, and—

A hand fell on Pritchard’s shoulder. _Fuck_ , was Pritchard’s first thought, and he nearly shouted—but no, he recognized that metallic weight. 

"What are you _doing_?" Pritchard snarled under his breath, frantic.

"We need to go." Jensen’s voice was as calm as ever, and Pritchard could have punched him. In the back of his mind, he was counting down the seconds until the power came back on. _Sixteen, fifteen, fourteen..._

"Are you crazy? You can’t get back out with me." He _knew_ how close that final jump was; he’d measured it. Give Jensen a hundred and sixty extra pounds to carry and there was no chance of him making it. 

"We’ll figure it out."

"You asshole," Pritchard hissed. He shook off Jensen’s hand, trying to push him away with his unbroken arm. The knowledge that he at least he hadn’t fucked Jensen over with his failure was the one single thing making his capture bearable, and now—

The lights flickered on, blindingly bright. Pritchard blinked the fuzz away to see two fewer guards, a pair of bloody bodies collapsed across the floor, and—no Jensen.

"Shit!" snarled one of the guards, waving his gun wildly as he glanced around the room. One of the others ran to the bodies; another stared blankly at them, eyes open wide, with an expression that suggested he was realizing just how close to death he’d come. Apparently Becker hadn’t sprung for any of Tarvos’s even halfway competent troops. 

There was a soft electrical hum near Pritchard’s left ear. He could _feel_ Jensen’s presence still—but the space next to him, when Pritchard risked glancing over out of the corner of his eye, was empty. Smart enough to cloak, not smart enough to run. Wasn’t that just like Jensen.

Maybe Becker would shoot him now; maybe Jensen would be left with no choice but to escape. Pritchard could hope. But instead of fury, Becker’s face split into a smile.

"Snake," he all-but-purred, "you didn’t tell me you had a friend with you. You want to introduce him to me?"

 _Fuck_. Jensen should’ve run. Why hadn’t he run?

Nothing he could say would make a difference. Pritchard curled his good hand into a fist, waiting for what he knew was going to come—and then jumped as a current of electricity jolted through him. 

It wasn’t too painful yet. Becker was holding back.

"Don’t," Pritchard gritted out, looking at Becker, talking to Jensen.

"You know what this does?" Becker asked the open air, gesturing towards the collar around Pritchard’s neck. "It’s a fun little toy I made. Lower voltage and all it does is hurt. Turn the current up enough and it’ll fry him in a heartbeat. And if you don’t come out _now_ , my finger’s going to slip on the dial."

The mercs had finally pooled their small collection of brain cells together, and were pointing their guns in Pritchard’s direction. 

Turn on the Quicksilver and launch a nanoblade into Becker’s heart, take out the first merc with a clip of the armor piercing, get up close for the second and third before either of them could fire on Pritchard… it was scary, how well he could think like Jensen by now. (If anything that man did could even be called thinking at all.) And it was scarier just how bad Jensen’s odds were. 

Maybe if this were a fresh mission and his energy reserves were full, but now… Jensen had used the last of his Typhoon ammo on a cluster of guards two floors up, burned through his biocell reserves drawing on the glass shield again and again. Pritchard had watched it all happen through the security system, right up until he got grabbed.

One in fifty, maybe. One in a hundred if Jensen was low on bullets too.

"This is between you and— _ah_." Pritchard gasped around the next shock, muscles jumping.

"Shut up, Snake. I’m talking to your friend."

There was another pause, long enough that Pritchard could almost hope Jensen had done the smart thing and decided to run.

"Clock’s ticking," Becker said mildly, and with a staticky noise Jensen appeared at Pritchard’s shoulder.

The mercs flinched. " _Shit_ ," one of them hissed, taking in the sheer spectacle of Jensen’s augmentations. Pritchard flinched too, but for different reasons. If he had both his hands working he would’ve wrung Jensen’s neck right here in the basement in full view of Becker and every last one of his lackeys. 

Of course Jensen wouldn't listen to him. When did he ever?

Becker didn’t jump, though. He just peered at Jensen—his eyes full of curiosity and manic glee—and said, "Huh. I think I’ve seen you before. You worked at Sarif Industries, didn’t you? The head of security who got hurt in that attack… we got the news in prison occasionally. I remember reading about it." 

Jensen stared Becker down, unmoving. Pritchard couldn’t read what he might be thinking behind those glasses of his.

With a grin, Becker added, "You’ve stuck around with Snake that long, then, huh? That’s impressive. Normally he’s not very good at keeping friends."

"Fuck off, Becker," Pritchard cut in with a snarl. He didn’t want Jensen thinking…

Well. Not like it mattered now, when the rest of their lives could be measured in minutes. But he’d gotten used to Jensen, after this long in each other’s orbit: they worked the same missions, shared the same small apartments or hotel rooms, spent long hours together working on cases or prepping plans of attack or simply existing in each other's space. He—understood Jensen, he supposed, as much as anyone could. 

And sometimes, in the early mornings when the two of them blindly coordinated over the coffee machine, too tired to argue without a fix of caffeine, or when Jensen came climbing back through a window after a mission gone adrenaline-poundingly right and gave Pritchard a rare genuine smile, he could almost imagine—

Ugh. Pritchard shook his head, pushing away the Not like that mattered either. But Jensen wasn't a goddamn thing like Becker, and Pritchard didn't want Becker comparing the two of them for even a second.

Jensen made a little noise, a quiet, noncommittal _hm_. Pritchard didn't even need to look at him—he could perfectly imagine one eyebrow rising up over the rim of his tac-lenses. "You two know each other," he said. His voice was mild. Pritchard could hear the tension simmering under it.

Becker barked out a bitter laugh. "Yeah. _Yeah_. I'd fucking say we do. I wondered if we would've ever mentioned me. Guess I got my answer."

 _Mention_ him, ha. Pritchard wouldn't have pissed on him if he were on fire. But he curled back his lip and glared at Becker and said, "Don't get so pissy. I forgot all about you, that's all."

That earned him another vicious shock. He'd been expecting that one; he gritted his teeth through it, ignoring the way Jensen's hand pressed suddenly against his shoulder as if to try and help him.

"You want to know who I am?" Becker snarled, waving the remote through the air as he spoke. Pritchard was half-afraid his hand actually _would_ slip on the dial. "Before _Sarif Industries_ , before whatever bullshit the two of you were trying to do here—Snake and I worked together, right up until he left me to rot in a fucking jail cell."

"Left you?" Pritchard snapped. The only thing keeping him from jumping up and trying to strangle Becker was that fucking remote. "You _betrayed_ me, you—" 

"I got us those goddamn jobs, every single one we worked on—"

"Okay," Jensen said. His voice cut through the chaos of the room. He was looking at Pritchard, and this time Pritchard could read his expression just fine. "So there's that."

Disappointment. Nervousness. Anger. _You didn't tell me about this,_ written as clearly across the lines of his face as if he were flashing it out in Morse code.

Of course he hadn't. Adam Jensen, former golden boy of SI, even more former cop—the one thing he'd ever gotten in trouble with the law for was refusing to shoot a child, and wouldn't _that_ give them some common ground to talk things over about: _Oh, you didn't want to commit murder? I once shut down all operations in a hospital for three days to get them to pay off my ransomware. Glad we've got some things in common._

And Jensen wasn't... wasn't the man Pritchard had first expected him to be, all those years ago. Wasn't even the man he'd expected when they'd first set about creating their little two-man Juggernaut-affiliated cell a few months back. But Pritchard still wasn't about to open up to anyone about the person he'd been back then: first scraping by with script-kiddie hacks and badly-modded malware just to keep himself fed, then taking on bigger and bigger jobs until the only thing he was chasing was the adrenaline. He would've rather pried back his ribs and opened his heart up right there on their particle-board kitchen table—it would've been easier and less messy.

"Look," Pritchard sighed, "you want to know what happened? He and I worked a few jobs together, back when we were first starting out. We got too confident"—Becker had gotten too confident, more like, and ignored every last bit of Pritchard's compsec advice—"and decided to take a job breaking into SI."

"It didn't go well," said Jensen.

Pritchard snorted. "Look at you, Sherlock. And yes. It was a shitshow."

He could still remember it, clear as if the bile was still rising in his throat, as if the gun was still in his shaking hands: _You bastard, what did you do, this isn't what you promised—_

He'd trusted Becker, and he'd paid for it. He would've had to learn that lesson sooner or later.

"Things—happened," Pritchard continued awkwardly, trying to brush past a 3AM arrest and five months of trial in a a few words. "And when we ended up getting sentenced, turned out Sarif had put in a request for leniency on my behalf. He asked them to give me probation, because he wanted me to come work for him instead."

 _Only_ me, he didn't have to say; it was obvious on Becker's face.

"He abandoned me there," Becker said to Jensen, rage spilling over in his voice. "We were a fucking _team_ , and he took Sarif's fucking peace offering without a look backwards."

Pritchard stared past Becker, towards the loose circle of guards standing there stone-faced, and then he closed his eyes for just a moment and imagined taking Becker's throat between his hands and squeezing. 

When he opened them again, Becker was still alive. Tonight was full of disappointments.

( _Left me to rot_ , he said, like he hadn't betrayed Pritchard first, like he hadn't fed him a thousand pretty lies about what that job was supposed to be.)

"Can't imagine why," Jensen said, dry as a desert. "You're so charming."

"You think he wouldn't do the same to you?" snapped Becker. "You think he wouldn't fuck you over the moment he..." And then he _looked_ at Jensen, really looked at him, and his face split into an oily, sharp-edged grin. "You know," he said, "actually, maybe he wouldn't. I always wondered about him." 

Pritchard tensed. He didn't move. Didn't breathe. _Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you—_

Becker took a step forward, knelt down to be eye level with Pritchard, and—gently, sweetly—asked, "You letting him fuck you, Snake?"

Pritchard didn't even have to react; Jensen was there first. He took a step to match Becker's, blocking Pritchard from his line of sight, and there was a quiet little _click_ as a nanoblade slid the first half-inch from its sheath in his wrist.

"That's enough," Jensen said, in a cold calm voice that promised violence, and for a moment Pritchard was sure this was going to be the moment: he'd snap that blade to its full length, and either he'd impale everyone in this room or he'd die trying.

(It would be the second. Pritchard knew it would be the second. But some part of him still wanted it to happen, if it would mean he got to watch Becker die.)

"Is it?" Becker asked, sickly sweet, and then he showed the remote in his palm again. Pritchard flinched, but Becker was focused on Jensen. "Because I don't think I agree. And, just so you know—if this little thing here breaks? The last thing it'll do is send enough of a shock out to fry Snake's brain." He snorted. "I might not have your tech, but I'm fast enough to crush this thing before I die."

Jensen made a low little noise between his teeth. "What do you want, then." It was a question, but the way he said it, it sure didn't sound like one.

"You think I was kidding? I want to know how you fuck him."

The whole room paused. Jensen grimaced, Pritchard sucked in a breath—even the guards seemed taken aback. "Boss?" one of them asked, taking his attention off of Jensen just long enough to give Becker a baffled look. None of them had been around Becker for as long as Pritchard had; none of them understood just how unhinged he could be under the layers of false charisma.

He'd made comments like that occasionally, snide and mean, back when they worked together: wanting to know who Pritchard went home with, what sort of things he did. Pritchard had thought Becker was joking, or at least he'd told himself he thought he was joking, but even back when he'd called Becker a friend it had made his skin crawl.

Becker had never tried to proposition him. Hell, Pritchard didn't think he _wanted_ to fuck Pritchard, or even men in general. But he'd always, _always_ hated the idea of Pritchard talking to anyone but him, caring about anything but their perfect team, and it had been flattering right up until it hadn't.

"God." Pritchard laughed, half-exhausted and half-hysterical. "Is this what you've spent the last eleven years obsessing about? I was assuming you'd pick up a hobby at some point." 

"Snake—"

"Well, come on, if you want the details then you should be asking me. You want me to tell you about how I sucked him off this morning and told him he was so much bigger than you? How I fuck him every night while whispering in his ear how much more fun he is than you ever were? How—"

The shock tore through his skin and muscle and blood, sparked against the augments deep inside him—in his skull, behind his eyes—until he could taste blood in the back of his mouth. He folded in two on the bench, clutching at his own skin with the hand he could still move, and he wasn't going to cry out, he'd never give Becker the satisfaction, but...

God, it hurt. 

The agony cut out as quickly as it had started and just as overwhelmingly; Pritchard _did_ make a noise, then, a hissed-out little moan of sheer relief.

Jensen was kneeling next to him. One of his hands was on Pritchard's shoulder. Pritchard couldn't remember feeling him put it there. The pain of the collar had whited out everything else. He and Becker were talking in rough, furious tones, but Pritchard's ears were ringing too loudly to make out the words.

 _Good job_ , he thought to himself tiredly, _pissing off the man with the homemade torture device. Just brilliant, really—_

And Jensen's hand moved from Pritchard's shoulder to the back of his head, and his other hand came up to cup Pritchard's cheek, and then Jensen was kissing him.

The pain had stopped, cut short like a light turning off, and Jensen was kissing him, and what the fuck.

It was a hallucination. It had to be. But when he pulled back, spluttering and angry, the image didn't fade: there was Jensen, mouth a few inches away from Pritchard's, looking for all the world like a kicked dog.

"Jensen," Pritchard snapped once he could manage to form words again, "what the hell?"

Jensen said, "I'm sorry." His tac-lenses covered his eyes; they weren't enough to hide the sheer bone-deep exhaustion and resignation in his face. "You're not going to die here."

"Don't apologize," Becker told Jensen. "Doesn't mean much right now, does it?"

"What-?" Pritchard looked between Jensen (furious and ashamed, still trying to keep his body between Pritchard and Becker) and Becker (his smile greasier and more self-satisfied than Pritchard had ever seen it), and then something went _click_ in his mind.

"No. No, _fuck you_ , no—and Jensen, you can go fuck yourself for even thinking about it."

"What was it you said," asked Becker, "something about fucking him every night? I think a demonstration's the _least_ you can give me, after everything."

He _was_ obsessed, Pritchard realized. Not just in the way he'd expected, either—he'd guessed Becker would be bitter and vindictive, would want to shoot Pritchard on sight. But this obsession with watching people suffer, with needing to humiliate Pritchard specifically... that wasn't the Becker he'd known back then. The years had changed him as much as they'd changed Pritchard.

(He hoped, he hoped; if this kind of venom in Becker been there all along and Pritchard had just chosen not to notice it, then what did that say about him?)

"Go to hell," Pritchard snarled back. "Jensen can promise whatever he wants, but _some_ of us"—he shot Jensen a glance—"have higher standards. I'm not going to be your doll."

Becker could fry his augmentations and his brain with them if he liked; no way he was playing along with this. Jensen was...

Well, he wasn't the _worst_ possible choice in the room. Not by a long shot. But he was too honorable for his own good, and stupid for thinking Becker would let them go under any circumstances. They were dead men walking. Pritchard, for one, didn't intend to go out getting pity-fucked by his ex-coworker.

"Well, fine by me." Becker shrugged. "Martinez?"

One of the merc's guns swung around to point at Jensen's head. Pritchard froze.

"I've got more use for him dead than alive," Becker said, too casually for it to be genuine. "So if you want to watch him bleed out before you fry, that's fine by me."

(Jensen was looking at Pritchard—unmoving, barely even concerned except for the way the muscle in his jaw jumped. It would have been easier if he'd looked judgmental, or if he'd been begging for his life.)

No. _No._ Absolutely not. He didn't want to let Becker mock him, but he wasn't going to let Jensen be murdered right in front of him.

 _Fuck you,_ Pritchard thought, glaring at Becker, and then he leaned and kissed Jensen.

It was an awkward angle, especially with only one arm usable, and his teeth clacked painfully against Jensen's artificial set when he tried to adjust. His heart jumped in his chest, hooked to a live wire— _literally_ , he thought, feeling the weight of the collar more than ever, and it wasn't funny but he wanted to laugh.

He'd thought about this before. Not _this_ : collared like a dog and hooked up to a battery set to stop his heart, here on a grimy bench in a filth-stained underground lair with his broken arm hanging useless by his side, an audience of assholes ready to watch him humiliate himself. But Jensen's mouth, his tongue, the feel of his metal hands when he slid one into Pritchard's hair...

He'd been curious. That was all. Pathetically, embarrassingly curious, just like he was a teenager again: watching the hero with his swords and his special powers through the screen, wishing he could _actually_ become some meaningful part of that world. Fantasizing about the stupidest things. And Adam fucking Jensen wasn't any less stupid a crush than Cloud Strife had been, but—here he was, nonetheless, about to get them both humiliated and then killed, because he'd been too invested in what Jensen thought of him to tell the truth from the start and too eager to bite back at Becker to keep his mouth shut.

 _What a genius_ , Pritchard thought, and his breath hitched, just a little—and then Jensen's hand was sliding from his ponytail to cup the side of his cheek, and Jensen said, "Shhh," and then, "I'm sorry," like any of this was his fault.

"Shut up," snarled Pritchard, because how fucking dare Jensen try to comfort him. He grabbed the side of Jensen's face with his good hand and dragged him back into the kiss.

For a few seconds that felt like centuries, that was all it was. Jensen wasn't a _terrible_ kisser, all things considered, and it had been long enough for Pritchard since he'd last gotten any kind of action at all that he could just... focus on this, on skin and teeth and tongue, and try to forget where he was. Jensen kissed his way from the Pritchard's mouth down across his cheek and jawbone, and Pritchard had to bite down on a groan when Jensen nipped gently at his pulse point.

"Aww," said Becker. "Look at you two."

Pritchard glared at him. Jensen's fingers dug tighter against Pritchard's skin, and then he shifted where he knelt just enough to block Becker's view of Pritchard. 

It was the pettiest thing Pritchard had ever seen. A completely useless gesture and all the more pointed because of it. Pritchard loved him for it—just a little, just for a moment. He had to press his face into the Jensen's shoulder to hide his grin.

"Cute. But I don't have all day, you know?" Becker had to be toying with the remote, fucking one-trick pony that he was, because Jensen's hands pressed against him again. 

"Don't," Pritchard said when Jensen fumbled for his jacket zipper.

"Pritchard—"

"My arm is broken. How are you planning to get that off?"

The look Jensen gave him was answer enough, even through the shades.

"You're _not_ cutting anything off of me."

"You're being so helpful," Jensen deadpanned, managing for a moment to sound _exactly_ like he did when they weren't both being held at gunpoint.

"I'm not trying to be helpful," he snapped back. "Look"—he wasn't going to start panicking, he wasn't—"if you're actually going to do this, then just... get to the point." He fumbled at his own belt, one-handed, trying to make his point clear.

Jensen just scowled at him, as useless as he ever was, and then he sighed and started shrugging his own coat off. One sleeve, then the other—one of the mercs sucked in a nervous breath at the sight of just how _many_ augments Jensen was packing—and then he tossed his coat to the floor in a sad pile of overpriced leather. 

Pritchard raised an eyebrow. " _Definitely_ not looking for a show, in case you were wondering."

"Pritchard." Jensen pinched the bridge of his nose with two chrome fingers. "Just..."

And then it hit Pritchard exactly what Jensen meant for him to do. 

"No. Absolutely not." 

Getting fucked against a wall or over the bench was bad enough, but at least that would be _awful_. The last few years had taught Pritchard that pain and hatred could carry him through more than he'd ever expected. But being put on his back, face up with nowhere safe to look, Jensen's own coat under his head for a fucking makeshift bed... no. 

Jensen gritted his teeth. A muscle in his jaw jumped—and then he pressed forward again, kissing Pritchard roughly, and before Pritchard could decide whether he wanted to bite Jensen's tongue off or claw those lenses out of his skull, he'd pulled Pritchard in even further so his mouth was to Pritchard's ear. 

"Thirty minutes," he murmured. "Can you manage?"

It was barely a whisper, hardly even a noise; for a moment Pritchard was sure he'd started hallucinating. But Jensen pulled back, one hand still on Pritchard's jawbone, and with a blink and a soft mechanical _hiss_ his tac-lenses slid away.

It felt wrong, seeing Jensen's eyes like this. Too personal. Jensen only ever uncovered his eyes during late night planning sessions or while standing around the kitchen table before the sun had risen—times when it was just the two of them, and he was too lazy to keep up his stupid chisel-jawed soldier act.

His stare was intent, pleading. The hand that wasn't touching Pritchard's face reached up to brush against his own ear. 

It could have been a nervous tic. He could have been pushing a stray hair away. Pritchard thought about the way he'd seen Jensen's jaw move, just slightly, the pauses he'd been leaving in the conversation, and realized.

 _Fuck._ The Infolink.

Pritchard's own augmentations were minor. He was cut off, unable to call for help, so he'd just... assumed Jensen was too. Stupid.

Who had Jensen been talking to? How much had they heard? No—he couldn't worry about that right now. Thirty minutes. Of _course_ he could manage thirty minutes. What did Jensen take him for? He glared at Jensen, then risked the barest hint of a nod before pulling him back in.

Jensen pressed against him, insistent but strangely gentle, moving from Pritchard's mouth down to his neck and back again, tangling his hands in Pritchard's hair or clutching at the muscles of his back. 

It wasn't bad. It didn't take Pritchard very much effort at all to play along: to arch into Jensen's touch, to bite back a moan when Jensen shifted closer to him. It would be convincing enough for Becker, at least, there was no possible way it wouldn't be; Jensen was a good actor, and Pritchard...

No one would never think Pritchard was acting, he was certain of that.

He was keeping a loose count in the back of his mind, roughly timing down to the end of their thirty minutes. Maybe this would be enough—maybe Becker was so stunted that he'd be happy to watch them grope each other like teenagers until he and Jensen could finally murder the fucker. But of course they couldn't get so that lucky; it wasn't more than a minute or two before Becker pulsed the collar.

Low-grade shock, barely even hurt, but Pritchard flinched all the same—and Jensen noticed, and took it as the warning it was.

"All right," he said, low and angry, and slid his hands lower.

Jensen rolled his eyes even as he fumbled for Pritchard's zipper, and that helped somehow. Like they really were in this together in more than just the grotesquely literal sense.

Pritchard had to clamp down on a noise when Jensen's hand first brushed his cock. They had an audience, and none of this was right—but _fuck_ , his hands felt good. It really had been too long, clearly, because even with the humiliation of it all he was half-hard already when Jensen drew him out of his pants. 

He glared at Jensen, flushed, daring him to comment—but Jensen just made an appraising little noise, and slid off the bench to drop to his knees.

"Wait," Pritchard said, genuinely startled, "I—"

And before he could form whatever half-hearted protest he might have been about to try, Jensen wrapped his lips around the head of Pritchard's cock and drew him into his mouth. 

His mouth was warm and wet, his tongue pressed slightly against the underside of Pritchard's cock, and he was staring up at Pritchard with lenses still retracted and his eyes still exposed.

Pritchard squeezed his eyes shut. Looking down at Jensen right now was too much. He wasn't going to come like this. Thirty minutes, Jensen had said, _he couldn't_ , and even if he lived he'd never live down the humiliation of coming the moment someone touched his cock with something more than a hand.

But it was still _Jensen_ there on his knees—and no matter how much he wasn't seeing he couldn't _not_ feel the way Jensen slid forward to take more of Pritchard into his mouth, or the way he rested one hand on Pritchard's thighs as he sucked and wrapped the other around the base of Pritchard's cock. Pritchard reached out blindly and tangled his good hand in Jensen's hair, just for something to hold onto, and Jensen moaned around him.

 _Fuck_ , Pritchard thought. Already he'd lost count of how long was left—he was having more than enough trouble focusing on anything that wasn't Jensen's mouth. He tried to keep his hips still, tried to keep himself silent, and failed miserably at both. 

Somewhere, barely more than a few feet away, Becker was having the time of his life and a few bodyguards-for-hire were probably deeply regretting taking this particular paycheck. There was no good way to write this up on a post-mission report, for one. But with his eyes closed he could pretend none of that existed—it was just him and Jensen, back in their dingy little safehouse apartment, with Pritchard perched on the kitchen counter and Jensen kneeling against that cracked-linoleum floor, Pritchard's hands in his hair and him drooling around Pritchard's cock as he worked one of his own hands against the zipper of his pants—

Pritchard opened his eyes, cutting his imagined world short with a glance around the room. Becker, present. Guards, present and uncomfortable. Jensen... still looking up at him.

That line of thought was too dangerous, in more ways than one. They weren't _lovers_ , and he wasn't about to wake up in a world where Jensen was doing this because he wanted to. He'd already lied to Jensen too many times on this mission—if he started lying to himself too, he'd never manage to get past any of this. This was Becker's fault and nothing more; there was nothing genuine about any of it.

Becker, as good at ruining things as he'd ever been, caught Pritchard's eye and jerked his head down towards Jensen. "He's sweet, isn't he? Taking care of you like that."

"Rot in hell."

Becker's smile widened. "You said you took care of him too, didn't you?"

At his feet, Jensen stilled. He drew his mouth off of Pritchard with a slick, wet noise. Pritchard refused to look down, to see how flushed he looked right now or how red his lips had to be. He didn't want to catch Jensen's eyes again.

He knew where this was going. He could pretend, he could protest it, but—he thought of how easily Becker had ordered one of his merc's guns against Jensen's head, and shuddered. No point in fighting it.

He stood, unsteady, braced himself on Jensen's shoulder with his working hand so he could go to his knees on Jensen's expensive coat. Any other time he would've been thrilled for a chance to smear a little dirt on the thing, but now...

It felt worse, somehow. Bad enough he'd gotten Jensen into this in the first place, salt in the wound to be taking his clothes from him on top of it. And Jensen treated the stupid coat like it was woven out of pure gold; he shouldn't care enough about whether Pritchard was comfortable to toss it onto some grimy patch of concrete like this.

But if Jensen was angry about that, Pritchard couldn't tell: all he could read in his eyes was stress, and the rest of his face was a mask. Pritchard winced a few times as he knelt, choking back pained noises when he jostled his broken arm, and each time he did Jensen was there to steady him. He'd wanted to lay on his stomach, Becker's preferences be damned, but even without trying he could tell that position would be hell on his arm. 

So Jensen was going to get to see every expression that crossed Pritchard's face while he was getting fucked. Wonderful.

Jensen helped him slide his pants off further, down past his knees and then off him entirely, and Pritchard wanted to be angry at him for that but it wasn't like he could've managed it on his own right now. 

The air was cold on his exposed legs. The floor almost felt warm, though, the coat keeping out most of the concrete chill, and he pulled the cloth closer around him as well as he could with one arm. Out of the corner of his eye Pritchard could see Becker and his guards, still watching. He ignored them all to stare at the ceiling. Breathe deep, breathe evenly, refuse to give them a reaction.

He shivered when he heard a zipper and then a rustle of cloth. He wasn't going to look. He didn't need to make this any more awkward than this already was.

(He could imagine, oh-so-easily, Jensen's pants pulled down just past his hips, already hard, his cock framed on either side by the sleek black of his augmented legs.)

Another moment and Jensen was kneeling over him, one hand pressing insistently against his mouth. Pritchard sputtered and shook him off, then shot him a glare. "What the hell, Jensen?"

There was a flush crawling up Jensen's cheeks. He glanced in Becker's direction, clearly miserable, and then in a low voice asked, " _You_ want to ask him for something?"

 _Oh,_ Pritchard thought, and then, _fuck_. He closed his eyes a moment, trying to pretend he'd wake up somewhere different, and then opened them to the grim concrete basement and Jensen's worried face.

No, he didn't want to ask Becker for anything. He could imagine exactly how he'd draw it out, the kind of delight he'd take in finally refusing Pritchard. He also didn't want Jensen to fuck him more-or-less dry, with nothing but their spit to help, but between the two options he'd take the one that involved pain and only _one_ kind of humiliation instead of two. 

"Fine," he hissed, "come on," and he let Jensen press his fingers into his mouth, sucked on them as sloppily as he could manage with his head tilted up towards the ceiling. After a few seconds Jensen drew them back, glistening with spit, and when he settled back between his legs Pritchard heard him spit onto his own fingers too.

 _For that little extra touch_ , Pritchard thought, half-hysterically, and then Jensen pressed a finger to Pritchard's hole and Pritchard couldn't choke back the noise that drew out of him.

His finger alone felt uncomfortably huge, pressing into Pritchard, and how the hell was he supposed to take Jensen's entire cock like this? Pritchard pulled his good hand up to his mouth and bit into the skin on the back of his palm until it radiated pain—just to distract him, just to keep him from breaking down and begging Becker for a minute of reprieve, a bit of lube, something, anything.

How much longer until Jensen's promised countdown finally hit zero? Pritchard didn't know, and he couldn't risk asking. Becker was watching him. Pritchard tried not to notice him, tried harder not to care, but it was impossible to ignore a face like that for very long. 

He was enjoying seeing Pritchard in pain, which pissed Pritchard off more than the pain did.

"Come on," Pritchard said, letting go of his mouthful of hand. "Just... hurry up, already."

"Pritchard—"

He rolled his eyes. " _Jensen_. Stop fussing over me, it's embarrassing. I can take care of myself."

"Right." 

Jensen's expression said, very clearly, that he didn't believe that for a moment; it might have been true that Pritchard was a little on the fragile side compared to fucking Robocop sitting there staring down at him, but it still made him bristle. He reached out, trying to tug Jensen forward without showing any more nerves than he had to—without making it obvious that he was more afraid of Becker watching him during this than he was any amount of physical pain.

If he saw something on Pritchard's face—any hint of desire, any moment of weakness towards Jensen—he'd point it out. And Pritchard _needed_ Jensen to think that he was just as horrified about every last part of it as Jensen was, that he'd never for a moment entertain the idea of anything else.

Of wanting this.

"Please," he asked Jensen, quietly, more open than he'd meant to be.

And Jensen must have heard something in his voice, because he sighed and scowled and said, "...All right."

He shifted closer, slicking one hand up with spit a second time. With a careful touch he forced Pritchard's hips a little higher—Pritchard's face burned—and then wrapped his hand around his cock, and pressed the head of his cock against Pritchard's hole.

It _ached_ , deep inside him. Pritchard grunted at the feel of Jensen's cockhead trying to force its way into his body. He'd known it would hurt, but he hadn't understood; it wasn't just a moment's pain he had to breathe through, it was a burn that grew the harder Jensen pushed.

" _Fuck,_ " he hissed, twisting his hand into Jensen's discarded coat. 

Jensen paused. "I should—"

"Don't you dare stop. Just—keep going. I'll get used to it."

It would be better if he could relax. But his body was tenser than it had ever been, wound tight with nerves, and he didn't have a clue how to feel anything but trapped and panicked.

"Okay," Jensen said, and then, "tell me if this is worse."

He leaned over Pritchard, bracing one forearm on the concrete next to Pritchard's head, until he was staring at him from only a few inches away. Pritchard's legs had nowhere to go except to wrap around Jensen's back, and this close up Jensen was all he could take in: his face next to Pritchard's, the smell of cigarette smoke thick on his skin and his coat both, his body a wall blocking off anything Becker or his guards might have to say about what was happening in front of them. 

Pritchard twisted his head, but that only left him looking at Jensen's arm instead of his face. "Oh, just perfect," he muttered. "I was really hoping to get _more_ up close with you tonight."

Jensen snorted, for a second actually smiling. And that was—easier. It helped, just a little, to have Jensen so near. To have everyone else somewhere much farther away, in Pritchard's mind if not in reality. When Jensen sunk a little deeper into him—a pace that would've been cruelly slow in any situation but this—it wasn't only the pain that made Pritchard squirm.

It was still there, of course. Not quite ignorable, not quite enjoyable. But it eased the more Jensen pushed, slow and careful, and once the head of his cock was past Pritchard's rim it was almost...

 _Fuck,_ Pritchard thought. His cock had gone fully soft, the blowjob he'd gotten earlier nothing compared to the feeling of Jensen splitting him open, but it twitched when Jensen sank deeper. He ground against Jensen's cock, testing the way it felt, and groaned when it sent a shiver of pleasure through him.

"Sorry," Jensen murmured, shifting a little. 

"It's fine." 

If Jensen wanted to think that had been a noise of pain, he wasn't about to correct him.

Carefully, agonizingly slowly, Jensen set a pace; he eased in and out of Pritchard like he was afraid of breaking him, never quite thrusting fully into him, sliding his hand between them to add more spit whenever he pulled back. Even with all of it—a slow, painful fuck on a concrete floor, Jensen's body pressed against him—Pritchard's body couldn't help but respond. He swallowed down noises every time Jensen's cock hit his prostate, his own cock stiffening until he was hard enough to ache again.

It had been too fucking long, that was all, and that was Jensen's fault too—it wasn't exactly easy to bring anyone over when he was sharing an apartment with someone like him. Wasn't exactly easy, either, not to think about how _unfair_ all of this was, that Becker was furious with him for fucking Jensen when he'd never actually gotten to fuck Jensen before.

At the very least he should be hated for something he'd actually _done_ , he thought, far enough gone that it actually seemed funny to him, and then Jensen shifted inside him once more and he grabbed Jensen's shoulder, digging his fingers into the scar tissue where flesh met metal.

As close together as they were, Pritchard's cock rubbed against the muscles of Jensen's stomach with every thrust. It wasn't a _lot_ of stimulation, not as much as Jensen's mouth had been, but together with the feeling of Jensen inside him it was all too much. Jensen had to be able to feel how hard he was, had to realize the sobs he couldn't quite bite down had long stopped being sounds of pain, but every time Jensen drew another noise out of him he flinched and murmured a quiet apology into Pritchard's ear.

He'd never thought he'd ever get tired of hearing Jensen tell him sorry, but already this was getting old. And Jensen was still being so gentle that it was torture: slow shallow thrusts, never fucking into him fully, a rhythm that was too languid to make Pritchard come but just enough to turn him into a flushed and panting mess.

If they were anywhere else—if this were anything else—Jensen might have been doing it on purpose. He might have tortured Pritchard like this, giving him something just this side of what he needed, keeping him trapped on the edge until he was furious and desperate and trying to rock back into every thrust. And that was the furthest thing from what was happening here, Pritchard knew, but _god_ —

Pritchard fumbled his hand higher, tracing Jensen's shoulder and neck until he could grab a fistful of his hair. With it, he dragged him in closer until his mouth was pressed to Jensen's ear, the space between them so nonexistent that he risked a whisper: "How long?"

Jensen didn't speak, but his grip on Pritchard's hip shifted. Thumb drawn back, four fingers pressing firm into his skin: four minutes.

At least, Pritchard hoped that was what Jensen meant. Morse code this wasn't.

"Is that all you've got?" he asked, louder, rolling his hips. And then, because he really wanted to be mean, he pressed his mouth to Jensen's ear again and growled, "I didn't think your cock was _that_ small."

"Pritchard—" Jensen said.

"My fault for assuming, I guess—"

The next thrust, rough and quick and anything but hesitant, turned Pritchard's words into a groan.

 _Fuck_ , Pritchard thought, grinding back against Jensen's cock. He was—a lot, when he wasn't holding back. The pace he set left Pritchard needing to wrap his legs tighter around Jensen's back just to hold on. Pritchard still had hold of his hair; he grabbed it tighter, twisted it between his fingers until he knew Jensen had to feel it just to give himself a little bit of control. 

It didn't seem to bother Jensen any, though; he just groaned and dug his fingers deeper into Pritchard's hip.

Four minutes, or not even that many now—three? Two? Pritchard wasn't going to last, no matter how little time was left: he was rocking his hips against Jensen's every movement, cheeks hot, panting and desperate and harder than he'd ever been. 

He bit down on his lip, trying to force another few seconds of self-control, but if a broken fucking arm wasn't stopping him from embarrassing himself then a bloody lip wasn't about to do it. Jensen's next thrust hit just right, sparking heat in his stomach and down his spine, and Pritchard scratched at Jensen's scalp and groaned, "Oh, fuck," and came across both their stomachs.

It felt— _god_ , it felt good. Jensen hard inside him, Jensen's muscled torso grinding against his cock, Jensen's voice in his ear and scent on his skin, and Pritchard hated how much he'd wanted this, how many times and ways he'd imagined this.

Didn't matter now; none of it did. Nothing was important except for the hit of pleasure that made his thighs shiver and his hand dig into Jensen's skin and his breath come out in short, sharp gasps that sounded like sobs.

A moment later, as the high of his orgasm started to fade, reality hit again: he was performing for a sick fuck's cheap amusement, and he'd gotten Jensen caught in this nightmare too, and he'd just come from Jensen fucking him and there wasn't a chance in hell Jensen didn't realize it.

Pritchard lay there, panting, and mentally dared Jensen to comment on a single goddamn part of this.

"Oh," Jensen said, a little startled noise, like he was surprised by what he'd done to Pritchard. Pritchard was caught between relaxing into his post-orgasmic haze and trying to think up ways to murder Jensen when Jensen leaned in and pressed their lips clumsily together.

It was a rough, off-balance thing, less coordinated even than the ones they'd shared before—and before Pritchard could even think of pushing Jensen off, before he could tell himself he wanted to, Jensen moaned against Pritchard's mouth, gave a last unsteady thrust, and pulled out just far enough for Pritchard to feel him come _on_ him instead of inside him. 

_Ugh._ Fucking disgusting.

Pritchard tried to squirm backwards, get even a few inches' distance, but Jensen was still half on top of him and he didn't look willing to move anytime soon. He was too busy trying to fumble his cock back into his pants, looking as red as Pritchard had ever seen him, and it would be _fantastic_ if he'd stop for a moment to wonder whether Pritchard might like a chance to try and get dressed too before Becker shot them both in the back of the head.

"Well," Becker said, a hundred different shades of self-satisfaction and cruel glee and barely-repressed rage packed into one word. He stepped closer, enough so Pritchard could see his shoes, his stained jeans. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

He sounded like a man who was about to start slow-clapping, the smug worthless fuck. Pritchard closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath before opening them again. Never mind the bodyguards or his broken arm or the collar around his neck; if Becker did, Pritchard was going to throw Jensen off, stand up, and strangle him.

Four minutes, hadn't Jensen signed? They had to be past that already. Maybe help wasn't coming, or maybe help was dead. Pritchard clenched his jaw, helpless and furious in equal measure—

"Hold on," Jensen said, and for the second time that day the lights went out.

Pritchard blinked against the sudden darkness, disoriented, and still _fucking naked_ , but he didn't have time to do anything more than that before one augmented hand wrapped around the bicep of his unbroken arm and dragged him backwards. Behind them something exploded, leaving crackling bursts of energy behind—Jensen's work, it had to be, his systems must've partially charged—and with a stampede of clumsy footsteps the guards rushed towards it and away from him and Jensen. A short burst of gunfire echoed through the room, bringing with it flashes of light too dim and too sudden too illuminate anything. Voices joined the tangle of noise—people yelling over each other, a sharp howl of pain, Becker snarling, "Find them!"

 _Shit!_ Pritchard winced. If the guards were panicked enough to start firing on the dark, they were panicked enough to get everyone in here killed.

"Jensen," he whispered, trusting the man's augmented ears to pick it up of the commotion, "focus on them first, for god's sake."

"Shut up," Jensen snarled back, barely louder.

"Fuck you too, then."

Jensen just snorted, and then Pritchard's back hit a wall and Jensen's hands moved from his arm to his neck. He swallowed when Jensen's fingers wrapped around the collar, suddenly glad for more reason than one that it was dark. His face felt like it was on fire.

"You have a plan?" Pritchard asked, bringing his own hand up to touch the metal there. No telling just how soon Becker would realize he could get a read on Pritchard's position by turning the voltage up; no telling exactly how the _safety features_ he'd installed in this thing might work.

"Break it," Jensen said. He couldn't see him shrug, but he could _feel_ it.

"Of course. I don't know why I expected anything different from you."

"You got any better ideas?" Jensen asked. He didn't even wait for a response before feeling for the sliver of space between the collar and Pritchard's neck and beginning to crush the metal between his fingers. Which—true, there weren't any other options, but he still could've _acted_ like he thought Pritchard might be able to come up with something. Asshole.

The collar bit into Pritchard's skin in a four evenly-spaced places, made tamper resistant by way of needles plunged deep into the flesh, and as the collar began to warp from the strain all four of them came to life with bursts of excruciating pain. 

He wasn't going to scream. He _couldn't_ scream. But fuck, it hurt, and the electricity coursed through him like he was nothing, like it was just going to build and build and build while he stood here and fried to death with Jensen trying to save him.

A whine slipped from his throat. He reached out on instinct, grabbing Jensen's bare shoulder and squeezing what flesh he could find there until Jensen's blood welled up under his nails.

"I know," Jensen said softly, "I'm sorry, I—"

And with a high-pitched staticky shriek, the collar finally gave up. Pritchard hissed when the needles tore free, but the twinge of pain was nothing compared to finally escaping that agony and the fear that came with it. 

Jensen tossed the collar somewhere into the dark; it landed with a clatter. Even with his head still ringing, Pritchard could sense the guards turning their way—noises in the dark shifting, some animal instinct sending a shiver up his spine. But now, with the collar gone and darkness for a cover they weren't the ones who needed to worry about being hunted.

"Jensen," Pritchard said. He didn't know how he wanted to finish that; _Fuck them up_ , maybe, or just plain _Kill the bastards_. It wasn't like he needed to finish the sentence, though—Jensen understood. He could feel his response in the way his body shifted, in the soft metallic hiss of a nanoblade sliding free.

"Got it," Jensen said, and then he was gone.

From the other side of the room there was a choked-off cry—blade through the throat, Pritchard didn't need to see it to know—and then another shout and a _thud_ of a body hitting the ground. Two down, must've been clustered up. If Pritchard knew Jensen, and he did... he turned his attention towards the other corner of the room. Three seconds later, as if on cue, someone there howled in pain.

For all the weapons built into him, Jensen was so rarely lethal. He preferred stun guns and chokeholds and gas rounds, even when it was stupid, even when it was _strategic suicide_ ; Pritchard had chewed him out more times than he could count over it, stabbing his finger into a holomap at every single point where Jensen could've avoided risking his life if he'd just used a bullet for once. Tonight, though... he wasn't just lethal, he was _brutal_. Pritchard was glad for the cover of darkness, and not just because it was what had gotten them free in the first place. Watching Jensen work right now would be like watching a bunch of drunk children trying to fight a combine harvester. Jensen couldn't have much power back at his disposal, not after so little time; he was using his blades and his speed, but avoiding the big flashy energy-hungry techniques that could have ended this in an instant. Even with that, though, there was no contest between them. Pritchard half-thought he'd be able to follow Jensen's path through the room without any sight or sound at all, just by tracking the choking feeling of his cold, silent rage.

Pritchard couldn't help but wonder what part of this he was angriest about. Was it that they'd hurt Pritchard, or was it that they'd forced him to touch Pritchard like that?

 _God_ , he was being ridiculous. What Jensen thought of him was the last thing he needed to worry about right now. He'd be better off guessing when the lights would come back on again, or trying to see if he could figure out where his pants were. 

They probably didn't have long, anyway. It had to be another forced power cycle, which meant another thirty seconds before backup power could re-activate itself. He had no desire to be stuck here naked and clutching the concrete when the lights came on again.

Pritchard edged forward, sliding his foot across the floor before every step he took as he wandered away from the wall. Stupid, maybe, but from the sound of things—Pritchard winced as another scream turned into a choked-off gurgle—Jensen had it covered. 

Three steps in, his toe hit something bulky and warm. It left a tacky smear across his foot when he prodded at it; he didn't need any more detail than that to guess that he'd found one of Jensen's unlucky victims. He ducked down anyway, though, to see if he could get anything off the body. Normally he was better than stealing clothes from the dead, but when the dead had been actively trying to murder him only a few seconds ago politeness took a backseat. 

The first thing he managed to identify was the dead man's gun. It was something bulky, the sort of weapon Pritchard wouldn't have wanted to use even with two good hands available. A combat rifle, maybe. The dead man was cradling it as if he'd expected it to protect him; Pritchard pulled it from his slack fingers and set it down gently on the ground next to him. 

Pritchard didn't have much sympathy for anyone stupid enough to go along with Becker's plots, himself included. But some people survived getting sucked into Becker's orbit, and some people didn't, and it was only thanks to luck—and as of tonight, Jensen's interference—that Pritchard was in that first group instead of the second. At the very least he could show a little respect.

Pritchard sighed, his good hand still pressed idly against the gun—

And then winced at the sudden light as their thirty-second timer ran up for the second time that night.

Jensen was in the far corner, pinning one of Becker's men to the wall with a blade through his throat and protruding out the back of his neck. He let the blade retract with a sharp metallic snap. The body crumpled to the ground. 

Two of Becker's men had gotten smart: they were kneeling on the ground, hands above their heads in careful surrender. One of them was leaning tenderly on a badly-bloodied knee. The rest of the mercenaries had met a worse run of luck. Becker, standing in the corner with a gun in one hand and Pritchard's remote in the other, scowled as he glanced between Pritchard and Jensen and his men. 

"Cowards," he snapped at the mercs. And then, with a disdainful glance towards Pritchard's very much uncollared neck, he tossed the remote aside. "And you—fucking traitor. I should've killed you the day we met."

Wasn't that rich. The feeling was definitely mutual.

"Keep complaining," Pritchard said, "I'm sure it'll help you."

His gun was pointed Jensen's direction. Pritchard wished it wasn't; somehow, he'd been more comfortable when it was him staring down the barrel. He trusted Jensen to be able to stop a shot aimed at him more than he trusted himself to stop a shot aimed at Jensen. 

"It's over, Becker," said Jensen.

Becker snarled. His finger caressed the trigger. 

Jensen was built to block bullets, but up close like this... Pritchard wasn't sure. Even dermal armor couldn't fully protect the hollow of his throat, his face, his skull, every still-organic part of him.

Pritchard curled his good hand around the gun on the floor next to him. Once he was sure Becker was distracted staring at Jensen, he pulled it into his lap. His finger found the safety, already disengaged.

"Fuck you," Becker snarled, "you think you're the fucking hero, don't you?" His hand was trembling, just a little, just enough that Pritchard could see his aim wavering. He'd only ever seen Becker this panicked once before—eleven years ago, the last time he'd held a gun to Becker's head. "Just another dumb fucking clank, you think I couldn't tell how _eager_ you were to get your cock into—"

Pritchard breathed deep, lined up the shot, and fired.

Firing one-handed was every bit the misery he'd expected it to be; the recoil slammed the gun back into his shoulder, jarring his grip as pain exploded across his torso and sending the gun's aim off-target. It was enough, though, if only just: Becker howled in agony, his gun dropping from his suddenly-limp hand, as a bullet tore through his forearm. More slammed into the wall behind Becker, a trail of bullets chipping the concrete in a jagged diagonal pattern until the strain was too much and Pritchard's finger finally relaxed on the trigger. 

Becker turned towards the source of the gunfire. He locked eyes with Pritchard, his face a mask of rage—

Jensen's nanoblade caught the side of his head, cut through skull and slid three inches into grey matter before his momentum slowed. 

Becker's expression went slack. His body crumpled, went limp, and by the time it hit the floor Pritchard could already tell it wasn't _Becker_ anymore.

"Fuck," Pritchard said.

Eleven years, and in an instant he was free. He didn't know how to feel.

Pritchard re-engaged the safety on his gun, more out of instinct than from any conscious decision, and let it slip from his grip. His shoulder ached, his fingers felt numb. He was going to have one hell of a bruise.

With barely a glance away from Becker's body, Jensen let the augs in his knuckles spark to life and sent two pulses of electricity into the bodies of the men who'd surrendered. Unconscious, not dead, and for a moment Pritchard almost wished—

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, told himself he did _not_ want to kill a pair of helpless men. They wouldn't talk, if they knew what was good for them—and anyway killing the witnesses wouldn't make Jensen forget it had happened. 

When he opened his eyes again he felt calmer. Mostly.

Jensen knelt down besides Becker's body, and was wiping clean the edge of his nanoblade on Becker's shirt. He was still bare-chested himself: sweat beaded on his back, mixing with the mercs' blood where it was splattered across him. His tac-glasses were back over his eyes—Pritchard almost asked him to disengage them again, but came back to his senses just in time.

Sure, Jensen had been... kinder than he'd needed to be. Gentle, almost. It didn't _mean_ anything, except that Jensen had taken pity on him when he thought they were both going to die. Pritchard knew better than to press his luck.

"Jensen," he said instead, and then, realizing too late that he has absolutely no idea what he wanted to tell him, "I... uh, look. About... all of this."

Jensen winced, and abruptly stood. He stalked over to the center of the room, and then it was Pritchard's turn to flinch when Jensen grabbed something off the floor and threw it at him.

"Shit!" Pritchard reached up just in time with his good hand, caught something baggy and off-beige... 

_Oh,_ he realized. Right. His pants. Because he was still fucking naked from the waist down, and covered in dirt and sweat and blood and cum and quite possibly some brain matter too. God, what he wouldn't do for a shower.

"Could've used some warning," he grumbled to Jensen, but he started wriggling into them all the same. 

Jensen had retrieved his own clothes too; he paused in the middle of slipping his trench coat back on to say, "Vega's a few blocks away. She triggered that power cycle from the second-floor generator with a remote-access drone. I told her not to come here in person, but..." He shrugged.

Well, fuck. Pritchard didn't need Jensen to finish that sentence. He wasn't friends with Vega, not by a long shot, but even he had to admit that she sure as hell didn't slack when it came to getting a mission done. If they weren't out of here fast, she'd be headed down here to clean up any shit they'd failed to take care of. And—Pritchard looked around the room, at the dead bodies and bloodstained floors, and then at Jensen's disheveled appearance, imagining what Vega would think of it all—he didn't want to give anyone any reason to guess what might've happened here tonight.

"Right," Pritchard sighed. His knees felt like they were made of jello, his shoulder ached, his arm was a mass of cold agony, and his ass was sore for reasons he planned never to think about again. All in all, he'd had better days. "And, Jensen?"

Jensen had walked over the the computer bank in the corner. He paused in pulling out the flash drive he'd inserted there what felt like a lifetime ago—their original goal, near-forgotten in the chaos—and glanced back Pritchard's way.

He hardly knew what to say. He'd been lying to Jensen by omission for weeks now; he'd pulled him into stupid, easily-avoidable danger; he'd gotten captured. He'd been the weak link in all of this, the reason Jensen had to play to the whims of a crazy asshole like Becker. He'd fucked up again and again and again tonight, so many different ways he could hardly stand to think about it.

 _It won't happen again_ , he could've said—but it was bad enough that it had happened once. _If you're done with us, that's fine_ , but it wasn't like that his place to say that anyway. Jensen could always leave if he wanted to, no matter whether Pritchard gave him permission.

He sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose, and what finally came out was, "I'm sorry."

If anything would help, that had to—Pritchard was fairly sure he'd never once in his life apologized to fucking _Jensen_ before. But Jensen only stopped still in the center of the room, looking at Pritchard through his tac-lenses. A muscle in his jaw clenched; the stress lines on his forehead deepened.

"Don't _apologize_ ," he said, and without another word he stepped past Pritchard and out into the basement's main hall.

 _Well, fuck you too_ , Pritchard thought, trying to ignore the cold lump of dread that had settled into his stomach.

Pritchard stayed in the room a moment longer, staring at Becker's body. Some part of him wanted to kick it, or fire another couple of rounds into his skull. In the end, he walked over to it, and knelt down, and closed Becker's eyes the same way he'd closed the mercenary's. 

It wasn't as satisfying as a good kick would have been, but it felt... final. And right now, Pritchard wanted this all to be over.

He stood, wiped the blood on his hands onto his pants, and followed Jensen out.

* * *

They didn't talk.

Pritchard had expected Jensen would have some questions— _What the fuck?_ , to begin with, or _Why didn't you tell me any of this?_ Hell, he'd expected a dragged-out, furious fight; if someone had done to him what he'd done to Jensen, he wouldn't have let it go without a word.

But Jensen just—said nothing. Not in the aftermath, when they turned the data chip over to Vega while steadfastly pretending their mission _hadn't_ gone so far off the rails the rails were in a different country; not once they finally made it back to their shared apartment, as they coordinated who got first shower in the most brusque way possible; and not in the days after either, in the long stretch of downtime where they were holed up in the apartment and neither of them had anything to do.

Jensen had to have questions. Pritchard had lied to him and compromised the mission with it—he had to have _something_ to say about that. And even if that something was anger or disappointment or cold disdain, Pritchard would have taken it. It would've been better than how Jensen was _actually_ responding: leaving the living room every time Pritchard entered it, changing his sleeping and eating schedule to avoid Pritchard as much as was humanly possible, communicating with Pritchard in emails and text messages and even _Post-it notes_ , as if they were living in 2003.

Sharing the apartment had become an exercise in misery. Pritchard felt like he was going to go insane, like he was going to wake up one morning and march into Jensen's room and try to strangle him just to get him to _respond_.

But he wasn't that kind of desperate, and he'd never in his life let himself be the first one to fold in a standoff. If Jensen wanted to avoid him, that was fine. He could avoid him right back. 

And if it felt lonely, if he ended up missing Jensen's barely-awake presence at the kitchen table every morning, or if he unconsciously turned to check the seat next to him whenever he sat in the living room—well, it was an adjustment period, that was all. He'd lived alone most of his adult life and he'd never minded it before.

(And if he ended up doing a few things more embarrassing than that when he was alone in his room or while taking a shower, he could just pretend it never happened.)

It had been three weeks since the fiasco with Becker, longer than the two of them normally went between missions, and even now that his arm was mostly healed they still hadn't heard anything from their contacts. Pritchard couldn't guess whether it was just that the information he and Jensen brought back had given Janus some especially distracting leads to follow, or whether he'd decided to take them off active mission roster for reasons of his own—as much of a voyeur as the Collective's leader was, Pritchard wouldn't be surprised if he _knew_. No matter the reason, it was annoying. 

Pritchard rolled out of bed at half-past five morning, courtesy of insomnia, and decided calling it morning would be easier than spending another three hours trying to convince his body that he actually did need to sleep. Caffeine was better, anyway, more efficient and less annoying than lying there in the dark and staring up at the ceiling. Enough of it and he could keep going forever.

A shower was the first order of the day—the water turned up scalding hot, left to run long enough that Jensen couldn't avoid hearing it, could run back to his room and avoid him some more if that was what they were still doing. He toweled his wet hair off, pulled it into a loose damp ponytail and decided he'd been awake and making noise long enough that he could risk the rest of the apartment.

"Fuck," Pritchard groaned to himself as he padded down the hallway, rubbing at his eyes. His head felt fuzzy and sore even after the shower. Too long spent sitting in front of a screen, or else too long spent without coffee.

He walked past the mouth of the living room, headed towards the kitchen—and stopped, and did a double-take.

Jensen was sitting on the edge of the overstuffed living room couch, trying so hard to look casual that Pritchard could _feel_ the tension rolling off of his body in waves. His tac-lenses covered his eyes. Once that would have been unusual for this time of day, but he hadn't once deactivated them even in the apartment since that mission.

Pritchard tensed, waiting for him to get up and leave—but instead he just cleared his throat, awkwardly, and said, "Pritchard."

"Jensen."

"Look. Can we talk?"

Pritchard snorted. "Yes, apparently. Good for us."

Jensen sighed and gave him an unimpressed look, obvious even through the shaded lenses. "You know what I mean."

Of course he did; he just didn't want to say _yes_. And it wasn't if Jensen could force him to talk—well, he _could_ , most likely, but it wasn't as if he was about to hold Pritchard captive in their apartment—but he owed it to Jensen. He just didn't want to think about it.

"Fine," Pritchard said, grumpily, "but not until the coffee's finished." It would buy him a few minutes of reprieve, at least. 

"I made some," said Jensen. "It's in the pot."

Pritchard sniffed the air. Sure enough, the living room smelled like coffee—the cheap kind that had become their standard, because Jensen had no taste and Pritchard liked shitty coffee more than he liked wasting money. Jensen had cut off even that last escape route, the five minute brew time reprieve Pritchard had been counting on.

 _Bastard_ , Pritchard thought grumpily, and he stomped his way across the worn carpet and cracked linoleum to fill himself up a cup.

* * *

Coffee in hand, he felt less like a malfunctioning robot, which meant he felt just human enough for this entire situation to fill him with dread. He took a seat on the opposite end of the couch, as far from Jensen as he could manage to get without sitting on the floor, and stared at him over the rim of his mug.

"Well?" he asked. The best defense was a good offense.

Pritchard had expected Jensen to bristle at his tone. Instead he only winced, looking deeply uncomfortable even behind the tac-lenses.

"Look," Jensen said, "Pritchard." 

He frowned, eyebrows drawing together over the tops of the lenses.

Pritchard had been ready for just about anything to come out of Jensen's mouth. So, naturally, Jensen managed to hit him with the one thing he never would have thought to predict: Jensen sighed, and ran a hand through his hair, and what he finally said was, "If you want to leave, I understand."

"...What?" Pritchard asked.

He shrugged awkwardly. "I won't—stop you, or anything like that. Vega and I talk, and she knows people. TF29 is a bigger organization than either of us. If you're interested in doing field work still, I could talk to her, ask her to point you in the right person's direction."

The worst thing about Jensen, Pritchard decided, was that if he threw his coffee in his face right now it would barely even hurt him. "Are you trying to _get rid of me_?"

He set his mug down on the floor next to him; if he held onto it he really would throw it, and there was no sense in wasting good coffee—or mediocre coffee, for that matter.

He'd known it might happen; he'd known that exposing the ugly, festering wound that was Becker might have fucked things up between himself and Jensen beyond repair. But for Jensen to say it just like that, cold and awkward and talking desperately around the reality of it...

Somehow he'd always thought they were closer than that. He'd considered himself closer to Jensen than that, anyway. Maybe that was his mistake.

"What?" Jensen looked genuinely startled. "That's not—"

"So this is, what, then? Convenience? Mutually-agreed dissolution? A conscious uncoupling? Stop me if you don't need any more euphemisms," Pritchard snapped, layering venom over hurt, "I learned my fair share at SI."

"Pritchard," Jensen snapped, desperate and angry, " _I hurt you_." 

As if on cue his tac-lenses snapped back, exposing his eyes and the bags underneath, and— _Christ_ , he looked awful, Pritchard thought. Like he'd slept even less than Pritchard had. 

...A few things weren't adding up. Pritchard frowned. "You mean on the mission. With Becker."

Jensen didn't even need to answer that; the look he gave him was the purest distillation of _What the hell do you_ think _I mean?_ that Pritchard had ever seen.

"Jensen," Pritchard said, very deliberately, staring at Jensen's obnoxiously perfect eyes and the all-too-human face surrounding them. "That was my fault. Not yours."

Jensen laughed. It wasn't a pleasant noise.

"Becker knew me," Pritchard said. "I got captured, I antagonized him, I led you into this—"

"—I could have gotten you out," interrupted Jensen, because fuck listening to Pritchard, apparently. "If I'd been quicker, none of that would've happened. I hesitated."

"Yeah, weird how people sometimes do that when they're _surrounded by maniacs with guns_. Fuck you for thinking things over before charging in—is that what you want me to tell you?"

Jensen shook his head. "It's not that simple. If I'd thought my approach through more carefully, I could've stopped Becker before he went that far. And I didn't, and..." He stopped, glancing away from Pritchard. "I can't just... _forget_ that. What I did to you. And I'm not going to ask you to just forget about it either."

Pritchard realized, with an awful sinking surety, that Jensen was entirely serious. He'd spent the past three weeks stewing over Becker and the mission, and trying to convince himself that getting off to the memory of how Jensen felt inside him would only make things worse, and meanwhile Jensen had been... what? Assuming he'd raped Pritchard? Trying to give him space?

Maybe there was someone out there somewhere who was more stupidly, insufferably self-martyring than Jensen; if there was, Pritchard hoped desperately that he'd never have to meet them. 

"Look," Pritchard snapped, knowing he was about to cross a line and too angry to hold himself back, "I didn't _mind_ , all right? It was—fine. So you can get off your cross."

He wasn't sure who exactly he was most furious with—himself, or Jensen, or the spectre of Becker that still hung over him—but the one thing he'd been desperate never to admit was out in the open now. He couldn't shovel the words back in his mouth.

"You didn't mind," Jensen said flatly, radiating disbelief.

"I mean, the accommodations weren't _ideal_. I'm not exactly advocating fucking on concrete floors here. But, you... no. Sorry to derail your pity train."

Jensen blinked at him. He looked genuinely, deeply confused.

"Look." Pritchard's more rational half was screaming at him to shut up; instincts and panic and adrenaline kept him talking. "I know you, and _somehow_ I trust you, and..." He waved a hand in Jensen's general direction, summing up toned muscle and sleek dark augs in a single gesture. He wasn't exactly _into_ augmentations, but he wasn't not into them either, and he'd definitely never minded muscle. "You know. I've met a few people who were worse on the eyes. So, obviously some mistakes were made"— _by me_ , he didn't say—"but whatever story you've written in your head with you as the villain, you can go ahead and erase it. You were trying to save us both. And..." 

He squeezed his eyes shut, drew in a deep breath. And then he opened them again, and looked at Jensen, and said, "Like I said, okay? I didn't mind. If you'd asked me without Becker there, I would've said yes to begin with."

"Pritchard," Jensen said. He'd been turned away from Pritchard on the couch, taking up as little space as he could manage—now, he slid over to face him better, drawing just that little bit closer. 

It was Pritchard's turn to look away. He wasn't sure what he'd see in Jensen's expression. Pity? Betrayal? Jensen had spent the last three weeks convinced he'd done something horrible, something inhumanly cruel, and all this time Pritchard had been one step away from gagging for it—

Jensen's hand landed on his knee. Pritchard startled; Jensen's limbs were always so much lighter than he was expecting, and right now they were so much _closer_ than he'd been expecting too. 

Pritchard looked up, just to meet Jensen's eyes, and then Jensen pressed his other hand to the side of Pritchard's head and pulled him into a kiss.

It was different than before—less clumsy, less afraid. Jensen's teeth nudged at Pritchard's bottom lip; his beard tickled against Pritchard's chin. It was...

Pritchard pulled back, sputtering. "What the hell?"

"You said you would've said yes, if I asked without Becker here. So I'm asking."

For a moment, all Pritchard could do was stare at Jensen. _You can't be serious_ , he wanted to say, but—no. Jensen absolutely could be. There was none of the anger or disgust Pritchard had expected to see in his expression. Just nerves, and beneath that the same sort of bullheaded look he wore when he'd heard a particularly good sob story and was about to take on some suicidal mission _quid pro quo_ , or whenever Pritchard tried to convince him to go for the sensible option instead of the stupid one. 

He looked very serious. And it would be easy, so incredibly easy, to lean in now and press their lips back together—

"It's not that simple," Pritchard said.

Jensen pulled his hand away. "If you don't want—"

"That's _not_ what I'm saying," snapped Pritchard. "It's just—it's not that simple."

"I heard you the first time, thanks." 

_God_ , fuck him. Pritchard scratched at his scalp, loosening his ponytail. "Look. Becker was"—a creep, a monster, a rapist—"a piece of shit, but... he wasn't wrong that I abandoned him. And he had... problems, back when I knew him, but he wasn't like _that_."

"You didn't force Becker to go into arms smuggling."

"Obviously! I'm not saying I did. I'm just saying—it wasn't exactly like I covered myself in glory either, back then."

"For not saying you did, you really sound like you think you did."

The couch felt two small for them both, suddenly: Jensen's feet only a few inches from his, Jensen's hand still resting against Pritchard's leg, Jensen's warmth close enough to feel. They should've gotten a bigger one. Maybe one that stretched from one end of the room to the other—or, better, one end of the _apartment_ to the other. Anything to rescue him from having to look in Jensen's direction, see the all-too-obvious emotions playing across Jensen's face.

Concern. Worry. A whole lot of things that weren't disgust.

Pritchard glanced to the TV against the far wall as if it could save him, and then to the off-white paint on the ceiling that was peeling away to reveal even offer-white paint beneath. Neither offered him any escape.

Pritchard still hadn't told Jensen just what it had been like on that last mission together with Becker. He'd been trying to forget it himself. But he could still remember, as clear as if it was yesterday, the feel of the gun in his hand, the look of terror that flashed across Becker's face.

In the end, he'd shot him after all. But he hadn't been the one who had to look Becker in the eyes as he died. Jensen had done that for him.

"We were both hackers," Pritchard said. "Complete idiots, in the beginning, but we both thought we were on top of the world. We shared an apartment, worked jobs together." Though their apartment back then had been nicer than the one he shared with Jensen now. Freelance hacking paid better than freelance global-conspiracy-fighting, go figure. "At first it was all big targets."

"Nothing too hard to justify?" Jensen asked.

"It wasn't like I thought we were being _altruistic_. But I'm not about to pretend I care whether a fast food corp lost fifteen minutes of profit because we'd been in their systems." He sighed. "And then things started changing, and I told myself I didn't notice."

"You started growing a conscience." Jensen almost smiled, then. "Must've been horrible."

Pritchard snorted. "Hardly. It was just—the jobs started feeling less opportunistic. More personal. More targeted. And he started hiring us out to people I never saw, telling me it was just normal freelance work." 

And by _hiring us_ , Pritchard meant _hiring me_. There'd never been a question between them of who was better—Pritchard worked faster, understood systems more immediately and more intimately, could find weaknesses where Becker saw only solid walls. Becker had started out impressed by Pritchard, always the supportive friend, but the more money they made the more the bitterness seeped through. "And then the Sarif job..."

He let the sentence die on his tongue. The last time he'd spoken about that part of his life had been on the stand, and even there it had only been the most cold and impersonal of details. Sitting next to Jensen like this, _remembering_ it all, was different.

Jensen's hand squeezed Pritchard's thigh, the pressure so light Pritchard could've told himself he was imagining it. "It was bad?"

Pritchard sighed. "Worse. It was—he said we'd been hired to take ocular map designs. For a competitor. Tai Yong, maybe, I barely remember what exactly he was selling me. I got into the system fine, found what I needed, but..." He scowled. "I don't know if he thought I wouldn't look at the designs or if he just assumed I was stupid enough enough to trust him even with the evidence right in front of me, but the designs weren't fucking _ocular maps_. And it wasn't anything a civilian competitor would be interested in."

"Ah," Jensen said. The hand that wasn't on Pritchard's leg drifted up towards his own shoulder and the Typhoon ports embedded there.

 _Ah_ was right. Pritchard stared down at the carpet, trying to avoid looking in Jensen's direction.

"So, what did you do?"

And there was the question he'd been hoping Jensen wouldn't ask. Pritchard curled his fingers loosely in the air, remembering the shape of a gun's grip. "I smashed the computer. Started yelling at him. He never put any of his guns away, either, he liked to flash them around like he was with the DRB. And when he tried to start explaining himself to me..." Pritchard closed his hand into a fist. "I grabbed one. Pressed it against his temple. I really thought I was going to shoot him."

"But you didn't," Jensen said gently.

"Exactly."

Becker had been planning to sell milspec augs to the highest bidder. And even in the middle of pressing a gun to his head, all Pritchard could think about was much fun he'd had when we were both breaking into banks' websites together. 

"I always thought... after, I mean, I told myself maybe I'd done the right thing, not shooting him. That the person I knew back when we first met was the real Becker. Maybe he'd turn his life around while he was rotting in jail, end up learning some grand lesson and taking a nice white-hat security job like mine." Pritchard laughed, humorlessly. "And then he broke out and went into professional weapons-smuggling, and I made someone else kill him for me after all. So."

 _And I let you get dragged into this,_ he didn't add. He could still remember, all-too-easily, the way Jensen had looked with a gun pressed to his temple and his life in Becker's hands.

Jensen frowned. He slid just a little closer to Pritchard, close enough that Pritchard could feel his body against his own, and he said, "It's not weakness to spare someone."

"Says the boy scout."

"Biting," Jensen said. "And I'm serious. He made his choices. Just because he made the wrong ones doesn't mean you shouldn't have given him that chance."

"That's easy to say when you're not the one who knew him."

"Not like I don't have my regrets too," Jensen said. "But if you let them drown you, they will."

Pritchard rolled his eyes. "I'm guessing no one's ever in your life told you that you should become a therapist." 

But he reached down and laid his hand on top of Jensen's, and squeezed. The metal of his fingers was warm; his hands were sleek and smooth on top, turning to something more matte where his palm began. Pritchard had never had much of a chance to look at Jensen's body all too closely before; he could imagine turning Jensen's hand over in his own, tracing the wear marks and scuffs that would've been scars on an organic pair of hands.

He could also imagine tangling a hand in Jensen's hair and pretending he wasn't completely out of his depth for long enough to pull him into another kiss, so he did.

"Mmph," Jensen grunted when Pritchard brought their mouths together. It was awkward—too much force, too much teeth—but then he pressed one of his own hands against the side of Pritchard's face, changed the angle and deepened the kiss, and...

 _Fuck_ , okay. Pritchard could get used to that.

Pritchard's relationships had always been quick, temporary things, more focused on getting off than anything sappy. Jensen's breed of romance—a house and a dog and whatever-the-fuck else he'd been working towards back before all of _that_ fell apart—had never held any sort of appeal at all. But this... Jensen was cautious, still, even without an audience. Gentle. He kissed Pritchard like he wanted to be kissing him, and not just because it was a way to get them fucking quicker. It wasn't so bad.

"Here," Jensen said, tugging him closer. Pritchard swung a leg over Jensen's lap, ground his hips down so he could press their bodies together through the layers of clothing. Sitting up like this he could look down on Jensen, which meant he got to see up-close the way Jensen sucked in a breath and let his head fall back against the couch with a quiet, " _Fuck_."

Pritchard kissed him again. This time the angle was better. And then Jensen's hands found the bottom of his shirt and slipped underneath to press flat against his stomach, and that was another thing Pritchard could easily get used to.

For a few minutes they stayed like that: grinding lazily against each other, letting their hands and mouths wander, every once in a while muttering completely mundane things to each other—"Yes," or "More," or "My hair's caught in your knuckle," once, when Jensen's joints turned out to be a little too efficient. He never would've said it, but Pritchard suspected they were both enjoying the novelty of _not_ being on a literal death timer while making out.

Jensen touched him like he was trying to map out his body—exploring up his stomach and ribs and down his spine, raking his hands across Pritchard's skin in a sensation made alien by the lack of fingernails, playing with his nipples until Pritchard had to bury his face in Jensen's shoulder to hide the noises he wanted to make. 

It was ridiculous. If it were anyone else in the world it would've made him laugh. Instead, it was barely any time at all before he was achingly hard and biting his lip to keep from gasping Jensen's name. There was something about the precision of it, the deliberate way Jensen moved; Pritchard felt like he was being explored, taken apart, and it turned him on more than he could've ever guessed.

And all the while he couldn't stop thinking about—

about—

 _Before_ , with his head on Jensen's coat and Jensen murmuring desperate apologies as he fucked him, each thrust short and hesitant and painful. And that should've turned him off too, he was sure, anyone who wasn't fucking sick in the head would've cringed to remember it, but _god_ he just wanted to feel that again. Not Becker, not the broken arm or the collar around his neck, not the fear and the shame of it, but...

He'd liked the ache, how he'd felt every single inch of Jensen's cock all the way up his spine, and the way Jensen had clutched at him through it—both of them focused entirely on each other, both of them letting themselves forget anything outside the two of them existed. He'd liked having Jensen's body against his. And he could still remember the feeling of Jensen all around him: body pressed to his, hands on either side of his head, Pritchard close enough to breathe in stale cigarette smoke and the scent of his sweat.

He'd gotten too into his own head; Jensen pressed a hand to the side of his face, asked, "You all right?"

"Fine," Pritchard said, shivering as Jensen's fingers wound into his hair again.

"Mm-hmm." He didn't exactly look convinced. "What are you thinking about?"

Pritchard decided wisely to keep his mouth shut, and then opened it anyway and said, "I want you to fuck me like you did in the basement."

" _Christ_ ," Jensen groaned, and then kissed him harder. 

It was rough, Jensen's teeth scraping Pritchard's lower lip and his tongue sliding between Pritchard's teeth. When they broke apart, panting, Jensen pulled back an inch and stared at him with his eyes wide. 

"You—" he started.

"I'm serious," Pritchard said. "I mean, don't _break my arm_ , obviously, but..."

"Well, what do you want?"

Pritchard's cheeks burned. This had been a mistake, he could already tell. Talking about Becker and his own fucked-up feelings had been bad enough. It would be easier and less horrifying to jump out the nearest window than explain to Jensen how exactly he wanted to be fucked—and they lived on the eleventh floor. If he'd had Jensen's Icarus, he would already be gone.

If he'd just said nothing he could've gotten a handjob without any kind of fuss, but he'd just had to open his mouth.

"Forget it. It's not..." 

Jensen pulled him closer, clutching at his back. Pritchard could feel his cock through the thin barrier of his clothes. 

"Please," Jensen said, sounding about as uncomfortable asking as Pritchard felt explaining and every bit as desperate.

Pritchard whet his lips. "Okay," he said, voice sounding hoarse even to his own ears. "Just... on the floor, and you don't need to use—well. It's okay if it's rough. It's better if it's rough."

He'd never once felt half this embarrassed telling anyone else what he wanted—but then, he'd never tried to fuck someone who'd been on missions with him before. He'd never once cared if the person he was fucking was going to respect him in the morning, because he sure as hell didn't respect them.

(And calling what he felt for Jensen _respect_ was stretching it a little bit, maybe, but... it was close enough. He trusted Jensen, worried about Jensen's opinion of him, felt comfortable enough with Jensen to share an apartment with him, cared whether Jensen lived or died even when he was angry enough to wish he could strangle him himself. Wanted to fuck Jensen, even, in spite of all his better instincts. If that wasn't respect, Pritchard actively refused to think about what sort of feeling it might be.)

Whatever condemnation he'd been worried he'd find in Jensen, it wasn't there. He only muttered, "Fuck," harsh and low, his eyes dark, and then, "Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. Now?"

" _Obviously_ ," Pritchard said, baffled—did he think Pritchard was trying to set up a fucking _schedule_?—and then he had to hold tight to Jensen's shoulders as Jensen stood up.

One hand still on Pritchard's back, the other under his hips to keep his legs off the ground; he didn't even bother pushing off the couch as he got up. Jensen moved like Pritchard weighed absolutely nothing at all. The power he had was...

Pritchard shivered and wrapped his legs around Jensen's hips for balance. Two steps away from the couch and Jensen went to his knees, laying Pritchard down on the carpet and barely avoiding his abandoned cup of coffee in the process.

Again he found himself with his back to the floor and staring up at Jensen. This time, there was no one else to watch it happen, no one else around to mock him for it. Still, it felt—vulnerable. He scrambled up to his knees as quickly as he could, eager to be on something even slightly closer to an equal playing field.

"You have plans? Because I wouldn't say no to getting sucked off again, if you're wondering—"

"Something like that," Jensen said, and then he ducked in closer to Pritchard's body. He kissed the curve of this shoulder, then slid one hand under the waistband of Pritchard's pants and tugged at them. "Take these off?"

"Not exactly hearing a please," Pritchard grumbled, but he yanked them off regardless and kicked them in the general direction of his coffee. He wasn't sure whether Jensen could get any more sarcastic with his politeness, and he wasn't all that eager to find out.

For a moment he hesitated, and then he pulled his shirt off too, let the thread-worn old tee drop to the floor. Somehow, of all things, it was having a shirt but no pants on that reminded him just that little bit too much of the basement. 

Jensen was staring at him openly now. Pritchard flushed, drawing his knees closer to his chest as if that would hide how turned on he already was. Being the only one of them showing any skin felt far too unbalancing—he grabbed the collar of Jensen's shirt and yanked roughly on it. "You too, then." 

"Ah," Jensen said, "I don't..." He shifted a little, uneasily.

"You don't have anything I haven't seen before."

"I'm pretty sure I do."

Pritchard stared at Jensen a moment, took in the hesitation in his expression and the way he'd drawn in on himself, before finally realizing he was serious. Even back in the basement, the most he'd taken off was his coat.

He snorted. "If your personality hasn't scared me off yet, I don't think a few pieces of metal are going to do it."

A grin pulled its way across Jensen's face. "If only we could all be as charming as you."

"Exactly. So be charmed."

"You sure you don't have a CASIE?" Jensen asked. "You're so convincing."

But he pulled his shirt over his head without any more complaining, tossed it to the side to land near Pritchard's clothes.

He was—handsome enough, Pritchard wanted to think, not completely ugly, but even he had to admit that just plain _handsome_ was a better descriptor. He'd mocked Jensen before for doing strength training with four mechanical limbs, but just because his arms and legs couldn't benefit didn't mean his torso couldn't. Every part of him that still had skin had muscle to go with it, firm and toned. The spots where his augments had been bolted into his flesh were marked with thick scar tissue, silvery-pale, standing out stark against the deep black bolts and cables that lay flush against his skin.

"There you go," Pritchard said. "Not _too_ bad, I guess."

He reached out, unsure if he was allowed to touch but desperately wanting to. Jensen shivered when Pritchard's hand first brushed his skin, eyes falling half shut as his fingers curled against the carpet, and if that wasn't invitation enough Pritchard didn't know what was. He crawled forward to press closer to him, slid his hands down the lines of muscle and ducked his head into the curve of Jensen's collarbone to run his tongue along the metal embedded into his neck.

Jensen shuddered and sucked in a breath between his teeth at the feeling of Pritchard's hands and mouth, clutched at his shoulder with one hand. 

There was something more than a little bit satisfying in leaving Jensen speechless, but Pritchard wanted more. He let one hand fall to Jensen's waistband, tugged on the fabric there and pulled his mouth away from Jensen's body long enough to say, "These too."

This time, he didn't even get a protest out of Jensen. He shucked his pants off without so much as a complaint.

Last time, Pritchard hadn't gotten a chance to look at Jensen's body—he'd been too busy trying desperately not to let show what he wanted. Hell, he'd been too busy trying not to _die_. This time, he let his eyes drift slowly down Jensen's body—still not trying to look too impressed, of course. He had standards. But he could let himself enjoy the view: Jensen's cock, already half-hard and flushed red; the pale skin of his hips that gave way to scar tissue and then metal; the way his legs moved, human and yet not.

He wanted this so badly he ached—all of it, even, all of _Jensen_ , not just this one quick fumble on the floor of their living room.

God, he was an idiot.

With the lives they led it was stupid to plan for the future, and Pritchard wasn't some fucking twelve-year-old doodling hearts in his diary. But it was embarrassingly easy to imagine making this a routine: sucking Jensen off on the couch, spending a night in Jensen's room fucking him though the mattress then riding his cock when they woke up in the morning, arguing with him just to have something to make up for afterwards. And it was just as easy to imagine the parts of that routine that didn't involve sex at all. 

He already spent an absurd amount of time with Jensen, shared more with him than he'd ever imagined sharing with anybody; it wouldn't really be all that different if, on the mornings when they brewed coffee and pored over the blueprints of their next target building, he let his shoulder rest against Jensen's for a while. Or if he fell asleep next to him some nights, or—

Pritchard scowled, shaking away the images running through his head.

"Well," he asked Jensen, resting a hand just above the base of Jensen's cock, "are you going to fuck me or not?"

"You should—turn over, first. On your hands and knees."

"Am I taking orders from you now?"

Jensen rolled his eyes and then asked, "Please?" in the flattest, driest tone Pritchard had ever heard.

"Now who's the unconvincing one?" Pritchard said, but he went over onto his stomach anyway.

The carpet was rough and scratchy. He could imagine it leaving friction burns against his knees, his elbows—and that wasn't the turn-off it should've been. Pritchard glanced back over his shoulder at Jensen, who knelt between Pritchard's legs and was looking down at him intently. 

If he thought he'd felt exposed before, it was nothing compared to this. There wasn't an inch of him Jensen couldn't see, nothing that could hide how hard he was or how desperately he was digging his fingers into the carpet to resist the urge to beg. 

"Well?" Pritchard asked. "What, you don't know how this works? Because I didn't sign up to be the one to explain the birds and the bees to you—"

"I _really_ don't need to hear you try to explain that."

Pritchard snorted. Not like he'd do a worse job than any high school teacher—though, given it was _Jensen_ , he'd have to make extra-certain to use small words. He opened his mouth to say something about just that, and then shivered instead when Jensen touched his hip. 

"Tell me if—" Jensen said, sounding almost nervous, and then he cut himself off. Pritchard could almost hear his mental shrug. "Well, you know."

Pritchard didn't, exactly, but it wasn't as if it mattered that much. He didn't need a reminder; if Jensen did anything ridiculous, Pritchard wouldn't hesitate for a moment to tell him. For... quality assurance purposes.

Jensen leaned over him and lowered his head to Pritchard's skin, pressing a kiss into the small of Pritchard's back. He let his mouth slide lower—trailing along the path of his spine, making Pritchard shiver from the feel of his mouth and beard—until he found himself at the base of Pritchard's spine. 

And then Jensen grabbed Pritchard's ass, fingers digging in to open him up and expose him even more, and let his mouth slip even lower to lick a filthy, shameless stripe across Pritchard's hole.

" _Fuck_ ," Pritchard hissed, jumping at the first touch of Jensen's tongue to his hole. He bit down on his lip and curled his fingers in the carpet. His cock twitched. He shifted his hips, wishing for something more than the empty air to grind against.

Jensen's beard scratched at the sensitive skin around his hole, sending shivers up his spine, making him squirm. He'd never—fuck, he'd never done this with someone who had a beard before, the intensity was more than he'd ever guessed it might be. And it didn't hurt that Jensen was _eager_ ; he used his mouth like was trying to wring every last possible noise out of Pritchard, like he was getting off on this as much as Pritchard was. He licked shallowly into Pritchard's hole, slid his tongue in as deep as he could manage, pressed one metal finger in alongside it to make Pritchard jump and moan.

"You've done this before," Pritchard said once he could finally remember how to speak again.

Jensen didn't bother to dignify that with a response.

He needed more than this. Pritchard balanced himself on one elbow so he could wrap a hand around his neglected cock, thrusting into his own grip, but—god, it wasn't going to take him long to come. And he wanted Jensen inside him first. He wanted Jensen to fuck him hard enough that he'd be feeling it for days.

"That's good—ah, _fuck_ —enough."

Pritchard eased back, pulling away from Jensen and settling further onto his knees, trying to make it obvious what exactly he'd wanted. He'd said something similar to Jensen that time in the basement— _get on with it, I can take it_ —but where back then he'd been trying desperately to make it all end as soon as he could, now he just wanted more. Jensen's tongue, Jensen's fingers—neither was what he wanted to come to.

"Mm," Jensen said. "You're sure?"

"Give me six to eight weeks to think it over."

"Yeah, no problem."

Pritchard hesitated a moment, waiting for Jensen to finally move—and then realized, as the seconds ticked by, that Jensen fully intended to wait him out. God, and Sarif had once accused _him_ of being a stubborn asshole. Jensen would give himself blue balls if it meant Pritchard didn't get to come either.

"Well, if you can't figure out what to do." Pritchard wrapped his hand back around his cock, stroked himself slowly and slid his finger over the slit just to make his point clear. _If you can't take care of this_...

Jensen made a noise deep in his throat, and batted Pritchard's hand away from his cock to wrap his own around it instead. Pritchard laughed—and then sucked in a breath at the feeling of metal fingers wrapping around him. It was... odd. But not in a bad way.

And then Jensen ran one hand up the length of him, tracing the underside of his cock with those strange smooth hands, gentle enough to make Pritchard shiver. _Definitely_ not in a bad way.

"Come on," Pritchard groaned, thrusting into the loose circle of Jensen's fingers.

"All right," Jensen said, sounding almost fond, and then he grabbed Pritchard's hip and guided him from a crouching position to a kneeling one. 

It was a bit of an awkward angle, with Pritchard standing on his knees and staring at the wall opposite Jensen, and given Jensen's height it couldn't exactly be easy for him either. But all of that stopped mattering as much when Jensen slid close behind him, one hand wrapping around Pritchard's chest and the other resting against his hip. His body was pressed against Pritchard's—Jensen's torso a line against Pritchard's back, his legs tucked against Pritchard's own—in a position that left them both kneeling upright, Jensen tucked so close behind him that he could feel the soft thrum of his pulse against his shoulder. It felt as much like an embrace as anything else. 

Jensen's hand trailed from his hip to his back, sliding between the cleft of his ass until they found his hole, and then Jensen sucked in a quiet breath and slid into Pritchard in one slow, languid movement.

Anything Pritchard might've tried to say died on a moan. The burn was still _there_ , still enough to make him grit his teeth, but Jensen's tongue had prepared him a lot better than a few fingers could and anyway he wasn't half as tense this time around; this time, when Jensen pulled Pritchard further onto his cock, there was no panic underlying it, no sharp twisting fear to make him sick to his stomach.

"Oh," Pritchard said, trying to keep his voice under his control. "I— _ah_."

 _Fuck_ , it felt good. Not just better than last time—that wasn't exactly a high bar to clear—but better than... well, a _lot_ of people Pritchard had been with before. As awkward as Pritchard had worried their half-kneeling embrace might be, it gave Jensen an angle that let him open Pritchard up by tortuously slow degrees, making him shiver with every short thrust. He felt just as big now as Pritchard had remembered, which was—annoying, but definitely not _unpleasant_. 

And having Jensen behind him, wrapped against him like a barnacle, made it easy for him to toy with Pritchard as he fucked him. Jensen's head dipped to Pritchard's collarbone, to press a rough, biting kiss to the skin there. One of his hands had found Pritchard's nipple; the other traced a line over Pritchard's hip and against the skin of his inner thigh, so fucking close to Pritchard's cock he could feel it. 

Pritchard rolled his hips against Jensen, trying to remind him of what exactly was there that he could be making good use of, and Jensen laughed into his skin.

"Something wrong?" he asked. 

His voice sounded every bit as rough as Pritchard knew his own had to be. His breathing had gone harsh, every syllable gasped out as much as spoken.

And it was Pritchard who'd managed to do that to him, Pritchard who'd wrecked his perfect composure; he couldn't say it didn't help, knowing that. 

"Come on," Pritchard gasped out. He was so close to coming, so fucking close, he just needed that last little bit to get him over the edge. His cock was aching from just how hard he was, desperate and untouched. "Come on, just—"

 _You know what I want,_ he didn't say. It was obvious in every little movement he made, every heavy breath. 

He could've gotten himself off the rest of the way. But it would be better if it was someone else. Better if it were Jensen.

Jensen could've toyed with him even more, could've made him beg for what. But instead he just murmured a quiet, half-swallowed praise against Pritchard's neck—" _God, you feel so good_ "—spoken softly enough Pritchard was only barely sure he'd heard it, and then he slid his hand that last small distance to wrap around Pritchard's cock and, with it, thrust into Pritchard hard enough to make him cry out.

"Fuck," he gasped. Jensen wasn't holding back anymore; his hand kept rhythm with his hips, driving shivers down Pritchard's spine from two different sources at once. Jensen's hands kept Pritchard pinned close to his body; his breath was loud in Pritchard's ear; the smell of his cigarettes and the heat of his augs surrounded him. It was overwhelming, and he wanted it all, wanted it to never stop. "Come on, fuck, please, god, _Adam_ —"

He hadn't meant for the name to slip out. But Jensen made a noise at it, a low desperate thing in the back of his throat, and he clutched at Pritchard tighter as his hips stilled. His hand slid just perfectly over the head of Pritchard's cock, shaky and rough—and that was it, that was all it took before Pritchard shivered and bit down a cry and came across Jensen's hand as Jensen came inside of him.

He clenched tight around Jensen's cock, riding the sensation of being filled up, rutting against Jensen's hand with whatever small movements he could manage as he tried to stretch it just a moment longer, another—

Finally he fell back against Jensen with a groan, every nerve as sensitive than as he'd ever felt. Jensen's hand, still rubbing against the head of his cock, was very going from pleasure to pain—he batted it aside with a lazy swat, then let himself relax more completely against Jensen's torso.

He felt wrung out and hollow and fantastic. For a moment it was all he could do to breathe steady, let the high and the endorphin rush pass until he didn't feel quite so completely incoherent.

If he let his head fall back, he found, he could rest his head against Jensen's shoulder and stare up at his face from an awkward sort of angle.

He looked good like this, Pritchard realized: sweat beading his face, hair a mess, lips bitten red and cheeks flushed to match. It wouldn't be too much of a hardship to see him looking like that more often.

"Well," Jensen said finally. Dryly, he asked, "Not too bad?"

Pritchard scowled at him, all too aware of just how quiet he _hadn't_ managed to be there at the end. 

"Awful," he said lazily, tilting his head to better stare at Jensen. "Completely miserable."

"Ah. What a shame."

"You'll just have to get better, I guess."

Jensen snorted. "I see. You're just looking out for me, then. Is that it?"

"Exactly. I'm doing you a favor, really. Helping you improve."

Jensen went lax too, then, sliding them both sideways to the floor until they were more or less spooning against the carpet. 

Normally Pritchard would've protested. Couple shit was so far beyond anything he was interested in that it didn't even register in the same zip code. But Jensen was warm, and it wasn't uncomfortable—and, after all, it was Jensen. They were sharing an apartment anyway; he might as well lay here as anywhere else.

He shivered again when Jensen let his arm fall across Pritchard's body, his stomach leaping into his chest.

Jensen hadn't pulled out. His cock had gone soft inside Pritchard. Pritchard eased back against Jensen, considering slipping free of him—but he couldn't say he minded the sensation right now. And he also didn't mind having an excuse to lay here a while, quiet and still with Jensen's body pressed skin-to-skin-to-metal against his back and Jensen breathing softly against his neck.

Finally, Jensen stirred. He pulled back just far enough to himself free of Pritchard and then said, hesitating over each word, "You can call me Adam, you know. If you want."

Adam, huh. It wasn't like he was offering Pritchard anything all that unusual—David had always called him Adam, when he wasn't calling him _son_ , and Reed... well, maybe Pritchard didn't want to compare himself to Reed. But she'd always used the name too. 

It still felt significant, though, if only because Jensen had told him so cautiously.

"Hm," Pritchard said, and then, "don't expect me to return the favor. You're not calling me anything different."

Jensen snorted. "Sure thing, _Francis_."

And that was the end of _that_ , because Pritchard had never been cruel; he wasn't about to lay there quietly when Jensen's face so desperately needed a fist in it.

(Jensen caught his lazy swing easily, barely even looking like he was trying. Pritchard grit his teeth and resolved to sign his email address up for every spam mailing list in existence. Bastard wouldn't look so smug when he was buried under an avalanche of Viagra advertisements and fake neuropozyne substitutes.)

After, he took another shower, turned the water as hot as their tiny apartment bathtub could manage and tried and failed to focus on anything except the fact that he'd just fucked Jensen again. (Adam again? Fuck.) And this time they'd managed it without so much as a crazy asshole straight out of Pritchard's nightmares to bring them closer together. Which meant... what?

Pritchard knew what he wanted it to mean, as much as he hated admitting it. This alone could be a pattern: casual sex after missions or whenever the Juggernaut Collective's sources were slow in bringing them new targets, another time-waster to add to his League habit. After what'd just happened, he was sure Jensen would agree to that. It would be easy.

The water was running cold. Pritchard cursed the building's water heater as he shut it off, wrung the worst of the water out of his hair and stepped out onto the tile. His reflection in the bathroom's tiny, scuffed mirror was fogged up. No point in wiping it away. Pritchard wasn't so vain he couldn't go an hour without checking what he looked like. Instead he pulled on a shirt, a pair of pants, unlocked the bathroom door—and then sagged against it, pressing his forehead against the cheap hollow wood as if it could knock some sense into him.

That was the problem, wasn't it? He didn't want easy. He wanted... well, not a spot in the suburbs, or a picket fence, or a herd of obnoxious children, or whatever it is he was supposed to start wanting when he started wanting someone. But the rest of it: casual touches, and stupid dates, and exclusivity... he wanted the long-term. 

He wanted to stick by Jensen's side until one of them died, and he wanted to make sure it was him who died first.

"Fuck," Pritchard groaned. He turned towards the mirror and the blurry outline of his reflection. "You absolute idiot."

He ran his hand through his damp hair, and sighed, and pulled the door open, and left.

* * *

Jensen was in the kitchen, hair still a rumpled mess, still looking every bit as disheveled as he had before in his casual clothes. He was poking at a pan with a spatula and the smell of eggs cooking was in the air. The radio in the corner, a hunk of junk probably older than both of them, was blaring out a staticky rendition of some oldies rock song that Pritchard would never willingly listen to and Jensen loved.

Pritchard stopped for a moment in the doorway, taking the chance to look at Jensen while his attention was somewhere else. 

He looked good like this. Not so much happy as just... content. There was a looseness to his posture Pritchard barely ever saw. His shades were tucked away and he was tapping his free hand against the rim of the pan in time with the music, completely ignoring the heat like only he could.

It felt like they could stay like this forever if Pritchard just didn't move. Both of them casually aware of each other's presence, neither of them feeling the need to say anything, just standing in a bubble of wordless calm—

And then Jensen looked over at him, and the spell was broken.

"You want anything on yours?" he asked.

"I—whatever you're having," Pritchard said. 

He could've said something about Jensen cooking for him, but kept his mouth shut. _Look at you, you're learning,_ he thought to himself wryly. 

Plates were in the cupboard, what few they'd bothered to wash recently; the silverware was shoved messily into its drawer. Pritchard threw them out onto the table the same moment Jensen pulled the skillet off the heat, just in time to let them both sit down together at their cramped little table.

Scrambled eggs with bacon and green peppers, drowned in melted cheese—it was the most American thing Pritchard ever seen, or maybe just the most hungover college bachelor thing he'd ever seen. He took a big scoop off the skillet and dumped them on his plate.

Jensen was looking at him still, like he expected Pritchard to say something. Pritchard wasn't sure whether he was looking for a comment about what they'd just done, or whether the eggs were any good.

"I..." Pritchard said, and then, "Thanks. Adam."

Jensen— _Adam_ —looked over at him, startled. After a moment, he gave Pritchard a small grin. "Yeah. No problem."

They ate together in easy, companionable silence, Adam's knee occasionally brushing his, his hand reaching out sometimes to grasp Pritchard's shoulder.

It was the sort of thing Pritchard could get used to.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much for reading!


End file.
